NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #24

[nauticant]

Sandie Peggie, a nurse at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy (VH), has brought claims in the employment tribunal against her employer; Fife Health Board (the Board) and another employee, Dr B Upton. Ms Peggie’s claims are of sexual harassment, harassment related to a protected belief, indirect discrimination and victimisation. Dr Upton claims to be a transwoman, that is observed as male at birth but asserting a female gender identity.

The Employment Tribunal hearing started on Monday 3 February 2025 and was expected to last 2 weeks. However, after 2 weeks it was not complete and it adjourned part-heard. It is planned that it will resume on 16 July and the last day of evidence will be 28 July and then there will be 2 days of submissions from counsel meaning that the hearing will end on 30 July.

The hearing commenced with Sandie Peggie giving evidence. Dr Beth Upton gave evidence from Thursday 6 February to Wednesday 12 February.
Access to view the hearing remotely was obtainable by sending an email request to [email protected] headed Public Access Request (Peggie v Fife Health Board) 4104864/2024 and requesting access.

However, as a result of problems with the livestreaming, apparently caused by a very large number of observers, remote public access to the hearing was suspended on Tuesday 11 February. It was suggested that it might be reinstated at some point but don't count on it.

The hearing is being live tweeted by https://x.com/tribunaltweets and there's additional information here: https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr. This also has threadreaderapp archives of live-tweeting of the sessions of the hearing for those who can't follow on Twitter, for example: archive.is/xkSxy.

An alternative to Twitter is to use Nitter: https://nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets

Thread 1: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5186317-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse
Thread 2: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5267591-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-thread-2
Thread 3: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5268347-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-3
Thread 4: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5268942-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-4
Thread 5: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5269149-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-5
Thread 6: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5269635-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-6
Thread 7: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5270365-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-7
Thread 8: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5271511-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-8
Thread 9: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5271596-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-9
Thread 10: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5271723-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-10
Thread 11: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5272046-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-11
Thread 12: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5272276-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-12
Thread 13: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5272398-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-13
Thread 14: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5272939-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-14
Thread 15: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5273119-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-15
Thread 16: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5273636-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-16
Thread 17: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5273827-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-17
Thread 18: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5274332-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-18
Thread 19: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5274571-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-19
Thread 20: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5275782-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-20
Thread 21: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5276925-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-21
Thread 22: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5280174-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-22
Thread 23: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5285690-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-23

a male doctor who claims to be a 'biological female' either

1. doesn't understand the terms 'biological' and 'female'

or

2. is operating under a huge delusion indicative of serious mental health issues

in neither case do I want the chap giving me or mine medical treatment. And I certainly wouldn't want to work with him

The mind boggles how much Upton's ramblings will have cost...

Far more than they're worth.

How can you say that?

There's a value on the entertainment.

And more seriously value in blowing all trans arguments apart. The more they argue the dafter they look esp someone who is meant to be clever person and meant to have a basic knowledge of human biology!

Or
3) is actively and deliberately lying and holds an enormous amount of utter contempt for women.

Well yes

I was starting from the position that he is sincere in the things he said in court , but the opposite is always a possibility of course, particularly when someone is talking provable nonsense

Either way it can't be good for his future career prospects.

I've got no issue at all with the cost of the transcripts - they have to be accurate and the transcriber would have to be very good indeed. It's laborious work and very important for the proper working of justice.

I know people said it while the case was running, but you’ve got to wonder what his parents make of all this, particularly his mum.

I think inclined to think his parents approve.( in my opinion) I might be wrong of course.
I did see them on one occasion sitting in the tribunal. I have also read some things about them.

Are these things along the line of spoiling him, putting his whims above everything else?
I can forsee a person who never hears 'no' during development, would assume the world bends to their wishes.

There is no legal argument for this as such. They seem to be arguing that TT's tweets are inaccurate. In my view, that will only fly if TT's tweets seriously misrepresent the case.

My daughter is a year behind him in the newly qualified doctor career path. She and her colleagues have been following the case with open mouths. Some will be of the "be kind" persuasion, but what they seem to be seeing is, gender neutral, old fashioned, entitlement.

There is an unemployment crisis facing their cohort. There are specialist training positions for only about one in five of graduates from British medical school, further exacerbated by backlogs from previous years and the fact that over half the positions went to doctors who graduated outside the UK. (DD only knows one person from her Deanery/region who has been offered training place.) At the same time entry level non training posts have been opened up to full international competition (thank you Boris) meaning new doctors are having to compete with others with perhaps a decade of experience. Even short term NHS bank work has become stupidity competitive.

Yet some people manage to move seamlessly through the system.

There were inaccuracies but the ones I saw went in Fife’s favour… the bit where DU talked about the robot was mental but TT missed a couple of words which made it seem a lot more sane. I’m surprised they are trying to keep TT out. it just makes them look worse and worse

No idea on that.
The pieces I read were about what they do for a living and where they work. The father is in a very “captured” environment.

And this nails it.

Transparency is a PR disaster for them. However their response to the exposure of this circus is to try and hide it to avoid criticism rather than begin to question why the general public may have a very different view than they do.

This is actually healthy in some ways as people will start to backlash against individuals who are causing scandals and look untouchable.

Mainly because they have nothing to lose anymore if they can't find a job.

You're absolutely right and I don't object in general, just in this case to the idea that NHS Fife spent that kind of money just to try to bully Tribunal Tweets out of the courtroom.

Got you. Yes, indeed!

The SEEN in Journalism account on Twitter put it excellently -

'Reposting to stress full support for tribunal tweets.

This is an attempt to smear TT as much as an attempt to exclude them. They’re so accurate that journalists now check their copy against them.

Tribunal tweets has changed the landscape of tribunal coverage.

Gift link next'

https://x.com/JournalismSEEN/status/1910231316089413761

Just a thought - if the matter of public access is to be discussed next week, is it worth writing in to express support for this to be made possible?

There is a good piece on Tribunal Tweets - history and why they should be allowed to continue reporting on Peggie - with example posts including the glorious one where Judge Goodman is faced with the cast of thousands and support dog.

I know some people don't like clicking links, so you can google
Seen in Journalism Substack The courage of Tribunal Tweets.

I got an FOI from SC re viewing figures for FWS. For some reason it's not on their published list of FOIs yet (that I could find) but I'll paste below:

1. Does the Supreme Court collect web data/statistics as to how many people are live streaming a particular case?
2. If so, please provide the numbers of live streams for the For Women Scotland
(appellant) V Scottish Ministers (Case Id UKSC 2024/0042) for each session
(morning/afternoon on 26th and 27th November)
3. If so, please provide the average number of live streams for other Supreme Court hearings in the last 12 months for comparison

1. The Supreme Court uses Google Analytics to measure traffic through its
websites, including the number of people who live stream or watch cases on
demand.
2. 19,244 individuals watched the live stream of the hearing of For Women
Scotland (Appellant) v Scottish Ministers (Respondent) via the Supreme Court
website over the two days.
a. 12,556 watched on 26th November 2024
b. 6,688 watched on 27th November 2024
We are unable to break these viewership figures down to morning/afternoon
sessions.
3. Between 27th November 2023 and 25th November 2024, 42 UK Supreme Court cases were heard. The average number of individuals who live streamed each case during this period was 579.

Seems to me this demonstrates 1) level of extraordinary public interest in these cases, and 2) ability of SC to accommodate that interest without it disrupting proceedings.

Thanks this is really interesting. Why the large drop off for the second day, do you think?

Not sure, I tuned in and out cos I was working both days, so I can't remember the order of submissions etc. I meant to go back and watch the recordings end to end but haven't yet got round to it - maybe I'll do it Tues evening in prep for Wedn!
Interesting how much the viewing increase is on both days compared to average though, as well as the overflow viewing rooms they had in court...

Thx for recommendation, excellent article. I am inspired take out a TT sub :-)

Which case is the one with the support dog? I think it was before I'd discovered tribunal watching!